Commentary: The facts behind crime and migration

By HARRIET SERGEANT

Last updated at 01:04 17 April 2008

The evidence from the police is clear: Uncontrolled immigration has brought crime with it.

Britain's highest ranking black policeman, Mike Fuller, the Chief Constable of Kent, told the Government in a leaked letter that 'migration surges' had contributed to an increase of more than a third in violent crime over five years to 7,800 incidents in 2007.

Julie Spence, Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire, is equally worried. She declared: "The profile of the country has changed dramatically. . . The influx of migrants from eastern European countries is placing a huge strain on resources and has brought greater complexity to the pattern of crime."

She adds that the police have been "short changed for years" by a Government that has refused to plan for the at least 700,000 new arrivals from the Eastern bloc.

A leaked Whitehall memo claimed that Romanian gangs were behind an astonishing 80 to 85 per cent of cash machine crimes in Britain and responsible for a sharp rise in street violence, people-trafficking, prostitution, theft and fraud.

The Metropolitan Police's own crime figures for 2007 make disturbing reading.

Just under a third of those charged with a criminal offence in the capital last year were foreign.

Jamaicans, Poles, Romanians and Lithuanians topped the list.

Around a third of all sex offences and a half of all frauds in the London area are carried out by non-British citizens.

Across the country, one murder in five is committed by foreigners.

The problem is not new. The very fact that the Home Office has failed for years to get to grips with immigration has contributed to the growth in crime.

Most immigrants in this country are hard working and law abiding, but among those who have come here posing as asylum seekers from around the world or legitimately as workers from the EU, are the criminals.

EU citizens can enter legally with no more formality than producing a valid passport.

In September last year a Home Office memo revealed anxiety in the Government that 45,000 potential criminals from Romania and Bulgaria, identified by immigration officials as having links to crime, immigration offences and passport fraud, would travel to Britain.

Despite being known to the authorities, the Junior Home Office minister admitted the difficulties in keeping them out.

Indeed, so many have now moved to London that Romania is enjoying a drop in crime.

These gangs specialise in using children under the age of ten - the legal age of responsibility.

Their crimes have led to a surge in street offences in almost every big city in Britain, including London, Manchester and Cardiff.

One police operation alone identified 200 children from Romania who are thieving on the streets of London.

One police station now has a creche to deal with the children brought in.

Senior officers estimate the children are making about £100million a year for their masters.

One police officer told me that any suggestion that immigration was not contributing to an increase in crime was "bizarre".

And the Police Federation - which represents rank-and-file officers - said: "That suggestion is certainly contrary to what our members policing any large town or city around the country are telling us."

But talking about migrant crime is not just about offending rates among immigrant communities.

It is how much police time and resources are being diverted to deal with it.

Take translators for example. Last year Cambridgeshire spent £1million on translators.

This led, said Chief Constable Spence, to "difficult choices" on where to spend money.

Thames Valley Police also spent £1million on translators last year. Ten years ago it was £80,000.

NOor does it stop at translators. Feuds between rival gangs mean investigation officers have to travel to other countries to interview witnesses.

When a Lithuanian murdered a Lithuanian in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, "one of my staff," explained Julie Spence, "spent a lot of their time in Lithuania and this brings costs that we wouldn't have had before. Which means something else has to give."

David Smith, chairman of the Cambridgeshire Police Federation, said officers were becoming so stretched that they were spending less time on the beat preventing crime.

There is the nub. Not only does uncontrolled immigration bring with it new crimes, it also causes the diversion of police resources away from other areas.

Police resources are limited. It is time the Home Office acknowledged the problem - and stopped trying to hide it.